A LARGE tree narrowly missed smashing into parked cars after coming down in strong winds in the early hours of this morning.

The 50ft pine tree, which ended up blocking Chester Road, Branksome Park, Poole, came within inches of trashing a Mercedes SLK car.

Resident Victoria Edwards told the Daily Echo: “We were woken by a really loud noise about 3.50am in the morning. To start with we thought someone had crashed a car outside our house.

“We live opposite Branksome Woods, where you have these really tall pine tree, probably about 70ft tall.

“One of them had just come straight over the road and missed my friend’s car by about 20cm. It was really quite dramatic.”

Borough of Poole workers arrived on the scene at 8am to work on removing the tree and the road is now clear.

Mrs Edwards, a mother-of-two, added: “It was just so loud, and quite scary.

“There’s a lot of other trees there and with the weather we could be getting, I’m going to be watching where I park my car over the next couple of days.”

The Mercedes is owned by a friend who was visiting Mrs Edwards and her family.

“She came down last night,” said Mrs Edwards “She parked her car outside our house, and now there’s a giant tree a few feet from it.”

The incident comes as Dorset braces itself following forecasts of high winds and heavy rain for Sunday night into Monday.